December 10, 2012

Kristen's interview with Michael Hogan of Huffington post!

Kristen's interview with Michael Hogan of Huffington post! ♥

Michael Hogan: I remember reading On the Road as a teenager, and the women didn’t register for me so much as characters. So I wonder, as a teenage girl reading it, how the women seemed to you when you first read the book?Kristen Stewart: Yeah, it’s funny, they didn’t really register with me, either. People do love to say that this is a

boy book and that the female characters tend to be treated as play things and are peripheral. When you read the book, they tend to seem as though they’re almost like a tool for Kerouac to show that life’s crazy, that things are wild and sexy. That’s why, playing the part, we were privy to information that made this thing so different. I think getting to know the women behind the characters and getting to know Jack’s relationships with them and Neal’s relationships with them, it made it easier to play the character.

MH: Did you meet LuAnne Henderson, whom your character, Marylou, is based on?KS: She had passed away, like, right before we started. But I met her daughter and there were hours and hours of tapes where she recalled her life in great detail, and very much within that time frame as well. When I first read the book — I have brothers, and so I always felt like there wasn’t a huge distinction. I kinda wanted to be one of the boys for a while, and in some cases still do, and I think there are a lot of girls who read “On the Road” who feel [that way]. I wasn’t aware then that the females weren’t at the forefront of the story….

MH: Marylou’s a little bit that way too, isn’t she?KS: Oh, definitely. She was such a formidable partner for Neal [Cassady, the real-life inspiration for the book's Dean Moriarty]. Men, especially, love to identify with me and go, “Well, you know, it’s kind of a misogynistic viewpoint. The book has a fairly chauvinist feel to it. How do you feel about that?’MH: Kind of like my first question.KS: No, no, no. Not at all. That was actually really different. Because their thing is, ‘Oh, how could they have allowed all those terrible things to happen to them?’ It’s like, What makes you think that they were not absolute equal partners in that? What makes you think that they were taken from more than they gave, or more than they got back from the men that were apparently taking from them. I feel like getting to know LuAnne and who she was, and why she did the things that she did, and how she felt about them afterward, there was no thievery going on. She loved his life so much that she didn’t want to deprive him of any of that life, and he felt the same about her, and she very, very much carved her own path.

MH: What was the most surprising thing that you learned when you were talking to these folks and listening to the tapes?KS: I think the most surprising thing for me, given the way [Marylou's] storyline ends in the book and in the movie, was that [LuAnne and Neal] maintained their relationship in some capacity until his death. He could never stop going back to her. And that for me kind of was like the key. She wasn’t leaving him. It was just this sliver of life that you see that’s not expounded upon because it’s not her story…..

MH: Obviously, you’re really asked to go places in this role. After I saw “On the Road” in Toronto, I wrote an analysis of it, and one of the things I focused on is that you’re committing to the role to an admirable degree, with nudity, with sleeping with two men at the same time, with all this other stuff, and some people attacked me, saying, “Just because she takes off her clothes, you think that’s real art?” But what I meant is that it’s an actor’s job to do the role she’s given without holding back. Can you help me defend myself a bit here?KS: [Laughs.] Actresses love to stand up and say, after they’ve shown their tits in a movie, that it was done tastefully and that it was, you know, far from gratuitous. I mean, projects that really require it are really few and far between. And I think that in this case, it needed to be. This book celebrates being alive and it celebrates being human, and if you want to cover up and deny any aspect of that, you are denying the spirit of the book. I think that it would have been so wrong to shy away from anything in this movie. I think that I would have gotten flak for that. I think that it would have been that I was scared to disappoint my “Twilight” fans or something.

And I do hate also when people go, “Oh, wow, great performance. So brave.” Oh, because I’m naked? That’s very annoying. But at the same time, if that’s what they’re focusing on, then “On the Road” probably isn’t for them anyway. Also, I understand when people are already successful, you try to control some perception or you try to choose parts based on some expectation of what people are going to think. You’re clearly doing things because you want to be in some position of power and fame, which is not why I do what I do. And people, anyone that consumes that is then obviously going to think that you must have some consideration for those types of things, like what people are going to think.

….

MH: What’s your feeling about awards season and all the events and interviews it entails? Is it enjoyable? Is it a nightmare? Is it somewhere in between?KS: I love talking about this movie and everyone involved and the book and everything I’ve been through since the start of it. I would do anything to get the word out. The fact that it has something to do with the Academy, I simply personally can’t acknowledge it in any way because it’s a ridiculous notion to suddenly go, like, “Yep, I’m really gunning. I’m really gunning for it.”

As previously announced, Hogan also got the scoop from Kristen that her role in ‘Focus’ is confirmed and filming starts in April.